From what I have read the iron duke was a terrible engine, and seeing as it made less then 100hp stock it cant be very good. I know there are a few people on the boards rocking the 2.5 but has anyone here made it fast?

 

There was a turbo'd drag car I saw on this site, not sure what the times were.

I remember the 2.5 that was installed in a Pontiac 6000's way back when I was an apprentice. It idled like a cement mixer.

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/hist...bird-83-a.html
It's been discussed here before.
272 HP Superbird show car in 1983.
Since GM took all of Pontiac's engines away from them and left them with the Iron Duke as the only Pontiac engine, they had serious intentions of pushing a super duty program for it.

 

i have had iron dukes in an '84 fiero and an'87
celebrity yes,they were ruff and gruff but rugged and
reliable LOL. Forget the race,but there was a fiero pace
car that had a Hi-Po 2.5 built for it.Also,around 1987,
pontiac motorsports offered a special twin cam head
"for off road use".I kind of remember sometime in the
mid '80s,a whole tring of iron dukes were released with
faulty con rods;were forged at the wrong temperature
or something and were failure prone if engine thrashed
on hard-kinda remember a recall or something,but i
could be wrong on that.

 

I had one in an old Buick Skylark. What a piece of garbage. I give it some credit though - no matter what I did to it, it just wouldn't die.

 

I can't even fathom someone building an iron duke to be fast. Especially in a thirdgen.

 

building an iron duke 3rdgen is on my todo list, its just so hard to find an iron duke car.

if i do find one i will be doing a mpfi conversion and turbo on it im pretty sure i could squeeze about 300-350 ish hp out of one of them

 

I'd love to see that happen and read a good build thread on it if you find one

 

My parents had a few of them, but not in a 3rd gen, what a crap engine LOL! I knew a guy back in the day that had a 2.5 auto 83 Firebird.

 

I remember in the late '80's, a guys in my neighborhood put alot of effort into his black S10 Iron Duke. I don't know how fast it was, but someone claimed that they saw it lift the front wheels on a hard launch.

 

Had two of them in the back of a 42' houseboat some years ago. 120 Mercruisers. Were not fast but always ran good and were bullet proof. Don't think I want one in my 3rd Gen though.

 

That was me. The guy looked like he weighed 500lbs too. I couldn't believe it. He picked up the wheels half way across Belmont ave intersection. I'll never forget it.

 

I had one in a 84 Skylark with a 4speed (brown/brown vinyl). It was a peice of junk. My wife had one in her 91 Grand Am. The car had almost 200,000 miles on it and it got totaled a month before I started dating her. I forgot I also had one in a Fiero with a 4 speed....,.never made it home.

 

Pontiac had a lot of super duty parts for that motor back in the day. It wasnt hard to get 500 plus hp out of it. Costly though.
A friend of mine has 500,000 miles on a stock duke an it just won't die !! It doesn't make enough power in stock form to destroy itself.. lol

 

I drove mine without oil (it had a massive oil leak and I forgot to check it for a few weeks) and it was knocking like crazy. I figured it was time to junk it. My father talked me into adding some oil, and the knock went away, and I drove it for another few years. I can't believe the abuse that motor took. I guess like Ttop350 mentioned - it just didn't make enough power to destroy itself.

 

If you can find one, there is an old magazine/publication for making an SD Fiero Iron Duke. It is called Pontiac Performance plus... from 1984 or 1985...
This is the original Publication:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PONTIAC-PERF...item5ae6722160

This appears to be a reprint
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pontiac-Perf...item5ae692fdb1

 

After high school a buddy of mine had an iron duke s10 ...that thing was put through hell and back,no oil,water in oil.. damn motor never blew up...just got more tired like it was losing compression.
Fun fact about that s10: didn't need to use clutch to shift and it didn't grind lol.

 

Wow that guy even has vintage issues of Buttman magazine I was looking for those....thanks!

 

Yeah, I remember talking about it.

 

When I first started at Napa we had an 82 S10 2.5 stick no p/s no p/b. What a pos. Syncros must've been gone cause u always had to double clutch it. And my mom used to have a Grand Am with 1. It had 45000 miles and leaked everything but still ran. Had more electrical problems though. Caught the Tbi on fire and melted an injector connector. Still ran. They are reliable.

 

Guys.. Please keep it on 3rd gen topic... the Iron Duke S10 is entertaining, but try to keep it 3rd gen related.

Thanks.

 

Sorry

 

I am not upset, just have to rein it in sometimes... no problem akuna matatta

 

Hakuna Matata there Pumbaa.

 

Thank you

 

i have a runnig 83 camaro with the iron duke and a Muncie 4spd and 10 bolt posi, it has the f4i suspension package from the z28s factory,

 

Nice! Do you plan to keep and build the Duke?

 

Can you post pictures of your car?

 

I'm not sure, I was gonna sell it and just get a v8 car but I think since I'm going to put rings and bearings in it I might just turbo it

 

There used to be good support for this engine through GM Performance Parts back in the day. They were a popular spring car engine, IIRC. Pontiac Super Duty parts. I've seen a street rod (T-bucket) or two with them. Probably pretty hard to come by those parts these days.

 

I just saw that comp cams has iron duke cams for both flat tappet and hydraulic.


If you really wanted to, you could squeeze out some ponies out of that little work horse with some not too hard to find parts. The cam and related parts, maybe adding a dual tbi instead of the single, and yes, custom headers.


http://the-stickman.tripod.com/DUKE-INTAKES.html


Found this link on iron duke intakes.

 

That Hilborn system is sweet looking.

 

My old room mate the Fiero lover found one of those 4bbl Offenhauser intakes in the clearance bucket at a parts store. No box, NOS, and they had no clue what it was for. I seem to remember he tracked down a 500cfm carb and maybe the vacuum advance distributor, but nothing ever came of it. If I were a betting man, I'd venture the parts are still in a pile somewhere, assuming he didn't trade them for something else.

I'd expect the big problem would be like modding an LG4, everything on the car would have to be upgraded. Easier to just replace everything with everything for a real engine.

 

I have the full PDF of the SuperDuke article.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0...WstRWs4SFpNcTA

 

I see a Super Duty stroker crank listed in the parts section. I wonder if that gets you to 3.0L, like the Merc Marine version?

 

All the SD parts are in the old GM performance parts catalogs.

 

Just for something different ... my son put a Turbo and intercooler on his Iron Duke. Retro-fit from a Volvo donor. Rather easy swap. I programmed the stock PROM to dump as much fuel as that little throttle body could take. It drove remarkably well. Felt like a modern engine under the hood. Boost was limited to about 3 PSI due to limited fuel. I upgraded the PROM to some Aussie code that works on the '165 and we got it up to 5 PSI.

Current task is putting a TBI unit from a 5.7L on the stock intake with an adapter. That all works. Running two injectors of the '165 computer wasn't working so well. Injector impedance isn't working quite right. But the boost does climb much better.

I'd guess that old engine is making 50% more power with the current rather crappy PROM setup. I'd hope we could see 10PSI boost with it. Spring project.

Mark.

 

That's great! Love the ingenuity. Sounds like an application that could really use an EBL system for tuning.

 

Wouldn't it be easier to have injector bungs welded into the intake, and adapt a fuel rail? Seems you could convert the TBI to air only, increasing it's flow while keeping the TPS and IAC, and gain the benefit of 4 injectors. I would have to think it'd work better.

 

It was a fun project. I'm not a turbo guy, so all new for me. He did the mechanical work. I did the programming. Using that old '165 was impressive. Heck we got a 2 bar MAP working with it using the aussie code. It seemed to run best at idle and WOT. The around town drivability was the issue.

For the money invested ... a very cheap upgrade. The volvo turbo was a good size. The intercooler was a side to side model. Hardest issue was the oil return.

The Aussie code is a good starting point. PCMHACKING.NET ... version 12P. The best part was the wiring was nearly perfect. Had to add a wire for the 2nd injector, but that is where the impedance issue showed up. I got it to work, but it's an odd setup. This is where the variances in PCM's comes up and why GM made slight changes.

A fun project for sure. It gets the "what the ...." looks from people.

Mark.

 

I still have a 82 FB with a 4CYL 4SPD no options at all…no vents on dash for air. Its RED/TAN hardtop. I bought it 17 yrs ago and its sitting in a barn where I store cars.

 

I didn't realize when I started reading this thread that it was started 6 years ago, lol! I remember my vo-tech teacher grabbed my issue of (I think) hotrod magazine I'd brought in to class back in 87 with the cover story being about the future of hotroding and a pic of built 4 cylinders from the big three. The iron Duke, 2.3 Ford, and 2.2 dodge all naturally aspirated 200+ HP setups. He held that magazine up in front of the class and told us"this is the future hotroding!" He was kinda right, lol! The only real hangup I see with a built 4 cylinder is the weight of the third gens. That and the fact (correct me if I'm wrong) Pontiac never built one with a turbo like dodge and Ford did they? The old turbo 2.3 Ford Thunderbirds and 2.2/2.5 turbo dodges have huge followings to this day with tons of pretty fast cars still running the streets and tracks around the country. I actually really miss my 87 Daytona turbo... threw 18 pounds of boost on that little 2.2 and had a lot of fun But that thing weighed almost 800 lbs lighter than a third gen Camaro, so 225-250 HP made it pretty quick. There's just not a lot of aftermarket support out there for for the good old iron Duke anymore. Could it be done? With today's technology I'm sure. A lot of pretty quick thunderbird turbo coupes out there still.

 

Anyone remember Smokey Yunicks Hot Air iron duke.I think he got over 200hp out that little motor!

 

Sure do! Would have loved to spend a summer working for that man.

https://www.legendarycollectorcars.c...clusive-video/

 

From this article

 

Be still my beating heart

SIGN ME UP. I'm dying to get in on this.

What a bunch of HORSE PLOP.

The only reason - ONLY - is when there's class rules that limit CID, # of cyls, or whatever else, in such a way that that's the ONLY option left. Especially given that nearly ANY Japanese or European 4-cyl engine will UTTERLY THRASH that Pontiac piece of crap half of a 301, at 25% OR MORE lower weight.

Deliver me from "human logic". (oxymoron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymoron: "jumbo shrimp", "military intelligence", "feminine logic", "masculine sensitivity", "business ethics", "civil war", and so on) How about add "fast iron duke" to this list.

 

slightly larger Iron Duke blocks produced well over 230 horsepower
Where do I find one of these "slightly larger" blocks? TIA

 

There was an SD Iron Duke. There is actually a parts list for it in a magazine I have.

 

Yep, probably the same one I posted in this thread earlier.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/hist...ml#post6174878

 

If someone is having fun, let them. There was a time in my life where I'd have looked down on someone for hot rodding an Iron Duke.

A story about a friend that has passed... It probably was an Iron Duke, the 4-cyl option in a late 80's/early 90's base S10. My buddy Bob had a ball drag racing that thing. I think it ran high 19's in the quarter mile. But it was what he could afford at that point in his life, and he made the best of it. I'd give a lot for one more night at the dragstrip with him.